Our New Developments
by upperlevelcat11
Summary: When Iggy gets a new power, chaos ensues. And it turns out the rest of the Flock are soon to follow, if a mysterious note is to be trusted. After a year of silence in Mesa, these sudden changes are quite a surprise, particularly for Max and Fang. What crazy hijinks will they get up to? And what on earth is causing all this? FAX.
1. A Bag Full of Money

**So here it is, my first fanfic. Set sometime after book two, after the Flock has been experiencing a bit too much peace and quiet. But we all know these guys can never catch a break. Enjoy!**

When we first found out that Iggy had a gambling problem, there was a lot of blame floating around.

"You should have known, Gazzy," Nudge said. "You guys are like, best friends. I mean, he had to have mentioned it before. Guys talk about that stuff, right?"

Gazzy shook his head and looked at Nudge with irritation. "Not all of us are as talkative as you, Nudge. Besides, are you sure he didn't say anything to you? You've been following him around like a puppy lately," he said, a smug smile crossing his features.

She shook her head hurriedly. "What? No! I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't been following him around! You're crazy. Come on." She was in full blown panic mode, and pointed at Fang. "You're his other best friend, and you're as old as him. He might have tried to shelter Gazzy, but not you. You can't expect me to believe he didn't say anything to you."

Fang shook his head impassively. "Nope. Not a word of it. His two favorite topics are food and girls. In that order. Gambling never came up," he said.

There was only a moment of silence before Nudge turned her attentions to the youngest member of the flock, pointing an accusatory finger at Angel this time. "You read minds. How on earth did you not see this coming?"

Angel shrugged. "I don't know. I guess he never thought about it," she said, smiling as if all was well. Out of all of us, she was perhaps the only one who didn't grasp the situation. To her, gambling was something that you did on the weekends, it was when adults went to casinos and played games with all the bright lights and fun noises. In my mind, though, I kept on picturing Iggy going downhill, spending all his money, unable to enjoy life because in his mind, he was always waiting for that next fix. He was an addict. My stomach churned as I pictured any of our flock ending up like that, homeless and desperate. I'd tie Iggy up and send him to rehab (Did they have that for gambling? They'd better) before I let that happen to him.

"He must have thought about it. Addicts don't just drop their addiction when they come home. It wouldn't be an issue, if that were the case," Fang said. I gave him a reprimanding look; we weren't going to gang up on Angel and make her feel guilty… even if she was the one who could have stopped this before it got to be a problem.

"I heard that," Angel said, lower lip trembling.

"Sorry, honey, it's just… you're sure he hasn't seemed off lately?" I kept my tone gentle, not wanting to scare her off.

"Nope. He's been normal, just like you guys said. Thinking about food and girls. Even some stuff that's kind of gross," she said, wrinkling her nose. I could almost feel the smoke coming out of my ears. I was going to have a talk with Iggy about keeping his inappropriate thoughts in check when Angel was around. That is, right after the talk about his gambling.

"And what about you, Max? You're the leader, why didn't you pick up on it?" Angel asked, her expression all innocence.

"I…guys… come on, let's not make this a blame game. Obviously this is nobody's fault." I knew I was backtracking, but I didn't care.

"She's right. It doesn't matter, anyways. But how we handle this does matter," Fang said.

I relaxed. It was good to know I had someone to back me up.

"We could take away all his explosives, just until he stops. I'll keep them safe," Gazzy said, looking a bit too excited about the prospect.

"Or we could threaten to only eat crappy takeout until he gives it up. We won't keep anything to cook with in the house, so he'll either starve, or eat terrible food like the rest of us," Nudge said. I wondered for a moment if she had forgotten that we were only trying to fix Iggy here. I certainly didn't intend on suffering because of his stupidity.

"How about no. I was thinking we could stage an intervention."

"Do you even know how to do that?" Nudge asked, crossing her arms in front of her skeptically. What was this, the Spanish inquisition?

"No, but I've made it this far in life by bluffing my way through it. I don't see why this should be any different."

"What's the plan?" Fang asked, leaning forward and resting his arms on his knees. We were ready for action.

…

Maybe I should back up a bit. It had been a year since we'd come to live with my mom, and my sister, Ella, in Mesa. And damn, had it been a peaceful year. I don't think I'd ever appreciated how nice it was to live for more than a few hours at a time without having the ground ripped out from under your feet all the time. When we'd gone days without a disaster, it had been enough to make us all a little paranoid that something bad was going to jump out and kill us at any second. When it had been weeks without any disruption, we were in a hazy sort of nowhere zone where we almost wanted something crazy to happen, to just break the tension. And when it had been months, suddenly, that had stopped mattering.

At some point, we'd started to enjoy living life in a house, with warm beds and food, with a parental figure and a normal, human sibling living there with us. And so after a year (a year and 15 days, I should add; yes, I've been counting. It doesn't make me paranoid. It makes me unique), we had completely sunk into the rhythms of everyday life. We got up anywhere between 8 and 10, had breakfast, did chores, read books, watched TV, played games, pranked each other, flew, had a family dinner with Ella and my mom, then wound down and went to sleep anywhere between 10 and midnight (sometimes later, especially for Fang, who liked to stay up checking his blog at all hours of the night). It was predictable and stable and wonderful, all wrapped up together and stuffed into a warm layer of pastry. Scratch that last part. I'm hungry, and Iggy's not here to cook for us.

Anyways, I thought we were doing pretty well until yesterday, when I'd stumbled across Iggy's internet history. It was with innocent intentions, I swear- I just wanted to delete whatever filth he'd been looking up so the younger kids wouldn't stumble across it. He had us help him most of the time, but when he really wanted to keep something to himself, he was a pro at using the voice commands and all the fancy disability features. And inevitably, when he was trying to keep something a secret, it was because he was looking up something gross- what he did with it was beyond me, given that even disability features weren't going to help him see anything. But I was hard pressed to forget the time that Gazzy had asked why Google had given him the search suggestion, "hot Indian babes." Not my idea of a fun conversation.

So this time, I'd been clicking away and deleting his crap, when I had come across several related websites, all about treatment for gambling addiction. This in itself wasn't enough to cause any worry. I'd deleted them along with the rest, and gone to the boy's room to see if I could find Iggy and ask him what was going on. But he was gone. Gazzy and Fang were in the other room playing video games, so I decided to do some snooping. For the common good, of course. Like the NSA does. Right. That eases my conscience a bit.

I searched around his bed, ignoring the filthy clothes and bottles full of chemicals that no doubt had some explosive property- I was extra careful with those- until, under all of the other odds and ends, I found a small duffel bag. Black and ominous, I'd never seen it before. So what else could I do? I opened it, breaching all standards of privacy, and found a bag of money. A freaking. Bag. Of. Money.

Once I was able to stop myself from shaking, and had pushed past the urge to throw the bills in the air and make it rain, I rummaged through the bag. I had no idea how much was in there, but it had to have been in the thousands. They were mostly in wads of twenties, though there were a couple of hundreds in there. And they weren't new, nor were they wrapped up all neat and orderly. So probably not a bank robbery, then. That was one worry I could cross off my list. But still, that was a lot of money. Sure, we stole a lot back when we were on the run, but a.) that was to stay alive, whereas this clearly wasn't, and b.) we never had this much frigging money- if we had, maybe we could have bought ourselves a yacht or something, used that to hide from the white coats. Think about it; who would expect to find a bunch of bird kids on a millionaire's yacht? Certainly not me.

In one of the side pockets of the bag, stuffed in as if an afterthought, was a pamphlet advertizing for, get this, a gambling addiction support group. It was local. And it met every Monday night.

After thinking about it, Iggy had been missing from dinner every Monday night for the past month, at least. He'd been gone a bunch of other nights too, but those would have been his gambling nights, or so I deduced. Call me Sherlock.

Faced with this irrefutable evidence, we planned our intervention. We kept my mom out of it; she'd probably treat the situation like she was an adult and we were a bunch of kids. Even though it happened to be the truth, we didn't react well to authority figures exercising their power over us. A parental order for Iggy to stop gambling would have just about as much effect as me threatening to withhold his daily ration of spinach. None.

Fang would be the one to rope him in, while Gazzy and I would secure the exits. Nudge and Ella would be there to really dig deep into his emotional juices (whoa, that sounded way grosser than I meant it to be) and get him talking. Angel, of course, was there to read his mind and tell the rest of us what was really going on in there. Everything was in place, complete with my mom being out for a day of shopping. And just to be sure that we were getting through to him, I'd stockpiled duck tape and rope behind the counter in the kitchen.

This was Intervention, Avian American edition.

…

"What's going on?"

Fang had shut the door behind Iggy, and I stood nearby, waiting to guide him to a chair- the extra sturdy one we'd selected for the occasion.

"We just want to talk," I said, then gave Ella and Nudge a nod. That was their cue to move into place.

Once Iggy was seated, they took their places on either side of him.

"Have you been alright lately?"

"You've been acting kind of weird, haven't you?"

"Do you like us anymore?"

"I think you're being selfish."

"Definitely selfish."

"You need to face the problem head on, you know."

"She's right. I read that somewhere. Don't avoid it."

"Confront it."

Iggy seemed confused at the rapid fire Nudge-Ella commentary going on around him.

"Uuh, care to explain? Anyone? That is, other than these two?"

"Iggy, we know everything," Gazzy said, joining the circle. Fang and I took up our positions closest to the door, in case he tried to run.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Iggy said, though I noticed that he had broken out in a sweat. Good. I mean, not good. Or maybe kind of good. I don't know. At least we were getting somewhere.

"I found your money. The whole bag of it," I said. If he hadn't been blind, he would have been staring straight at scary Max, all arms crossed and angry eyebrows. As it was, my hard work was for my benefit alone.

"Uuh… It's not what you think," he said.

"Right. Oh, also, I know where you've been going these past few Monday nights. And a few other nights too, I think," I said.

Iggy really looked panicked now. "Alright, fine, guys, come on, don't be angry. I didn't mean for it to get this bad… I just… it's all so new and exciting. To have that sort of power, it's awesome. And the money, too, isn't that awesome?"

"No," I said.

He shrugged. "Fine, I can return the money, if you want. But the rest of it… no harm done, right? I've made contact, and I swear, it'll be totally normal from here on out," He said.

"Made contact?" Nudge asked. She looked confused, and so did Angel, but I pushed forward.

"It's not going to be normal, Iggy. You're an addict." I said. There, it was out in the open. A moment of silence followed. In our special episode of Intervention, Avian American Edition, this would be where the dramatic music would come to a climax, and then we'd have a commercial break.

Instead of being treated to an advertisement for dish detergent, I watched Iggy burst out laughing.

"Addicted? Are you serious? Besides, are you a professional or something? When did you start diagnosing people?" he asked.

"Iggy, it's not just her. We're all worried about you," Gazzy said. I could hear the emotion in his voice. Iggy softened.

"Come on buddy, you've got to believe me, I'm not addicted. It's just… I've never had this sort of power before. I mean, didn't you do the same thing when it first started happening to you?" he asked, looking to where Fang and I were. Even though he was blind, he always managed to target people in a conversation as well as any sighted person could.

"Uuh… gambling?"

Everyone in the room paused.

"Wait a minute. I don't get it," Ella said, looking at Iggy, then at me, then back to Iggy. Alright, so we hadn't told her the extent of Iggy's problem, but she knew enough to help us in her own limited way.

"Neither do I. You think I'm addicted to gambling?" Iggy said. Shock number one of the day was about to hit us.

"Well yeah… aren't you?" I was getting ready to feel pretty stupid.

"Nooo. I'm not. Never gambled in my life."

Boom. And there it was. Just give me my dunce cap and I'll go sit in the corner.

"Then why did you have a pamphlet from a gambling support group? And why had you googled gambling addiction a bunch of times?" Fang asked.

Iggy rolled his eyes. "Guys, I think you're forgetting one important fact. Let me enlighten you." He paused for effect, leaning forward. "I'm BLIND. Unless that pamphlet or the internet had suddenly developed Braille, I haven't been doing much reading in my spare time," he said.

"Then what was it all for? And if you haven't been gambling, then where did all the money come from?" I asked.

Ella timidly raised her hand. "Guys, I think you've got the wrong idea. If I had known what you guys were doing, I would have explained it earlier," she said.

Iggy nodded. "Thank you. I've got someone on my side at least," he said.

"I helped Iggy with the reading stuff. And I've been walking with him to the bus stop every Monday night to take him to the gambling support group," she said.

"Wait, I thought you said you weren't addicted to gambling?"

"I'm not. I just…"

"He's in love with a girl who is."

It all clicked into place.

"Oh." I said. All my energy rushed out of me with a whoosh. Oopsie daisie.

"I've been going to visit her. And I was doing some research on what she's going through, you know? She's so awesome," he said, looking dreamy. Nudge looked like she was going to puke.

"What's the money for, then? Did your girlfriend give it to you?" Fang asked.

Iggy shook his head. "No. She's kind of gambled herself into a hole, and I wanted to help her out of it. I wasn't going to give it to her. I'd just spend it for her, get her food, that sort of thing. I wouldn't let her gamble it all away, I swear," Iggy said.

"Then where did it come from?"

Iggy looked guilty again.

"Tell them Iggy, or I will," Angel said, remarkably stubborn for all of her seven years.

Iggy sighed, then opened his mouth to deliver shock number two of the day.

"Guys, I got a new power."

**There it is! More to follow, hope you enjoyed it- and reviews would really be appreciated. :)**


	2. The Crimson Heartthrob

**Chapter two is up and running. I think I'm starting to get the hang of this- and I figured out where this story is going (mostly).**

"If you tell me you now have the power to launder money, I'm going to get kind of pissed." Also kind of excited. But mostly pissed.

"No, it's not like that. I used my power to get the money from someone," Iggy said. Now that his secret was out in the open, he seemed pretty excited about it.

"How, exactly?"

"He's like me!" Angel said, clapping her hands with excitement. She jumped forward and gave Iggy a hug.

"You can push thoughts into people's heads?" Gazzy asked. I could almost see the possibilities flickering through his mind as his smile grew wider.

"No. It's not like that. I can… well, I've only used it a couple of times, but from what I've seen so far, I can… seduce people."

I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing.

"It's not funny! It's actually really useful. And it's kind of like Angel's gift, since once I've seduced someone, they'll kind of do whatever I want."

"That's how you got the money?" Fang asked. I still found myself unable to contain my snorts of hilarity.

"Yeah. I was seducing all these chicks out of their money. There are a lot of rich girls around here. Hot too. At least from what I can tell," Iggy said, shrugging.

"Iggy, you've got to be kidding me. You're trying to tell us that your new power is _seduction?_ That's got to be the most ridiculous superpower I've ever heard of. What are you, the Crimson Heartthrob?"

"I actually like that name, Max, and yes, it's real. I can use it right here if you want." He said, raising his eyebrow in a cocky, arrogant gesture. _You want to try me?_

I leaned forward. "Fine then. Let's have it," I said. I was ready for whatever he had to throw at me. If he thought he could penetrate my iron heart, then he was welcome to it.

"Wait, guys, hold up a second. Can you undo it afterwards?" Fang asked, the voice of reason as usual.

"Yeah, yeah, calm down lover boy, I'm not going to steal your girl. Just teach her a little lesson," Iggy said. Before I could react to Iggy's comment, he had grabbed my wrist. Suddenly, my field of vision narrowed to a pinprick, focused in on Iggy's face. All sound faded away, all my worries, everything, even the sensation of sitting here in the Martinez's living room. My mind had been emptied of everything but Iggy.

"Iggy…" I breathed. As the world around me expanded back to its normal size, Iggy still remained the first thing in my mind. How had I never noticed him like this before? He let go of my wrist, but I caught his hand, not wanting to let him go. I leaned forward and ran my fingers through his hair, unable to take my eyes off of his face. I was dimly aware of Nudge and Fang getting rather defensive around us, of the others laughing like crazy. I only had eyes for Iggy. My attention shifted to Iggy's lips, and I had the overwhelming urge to touch them. I released his hand to trace his lips with a fingertip.

"Iggy, turn her back to normal right now, or I swear to god…" Fang's voice was distant, barely registering with my brain. I didn't have time to think about him, not when Iggy was right here in front of me.

"Come on, Iggy, please, just quit it, will you?" In my peripheral vision I caught sight of Nudge's face, close to tears. But my gaze fixed back on Iggy in a second as I leaned forward, intent on exploring his lips with my own, knowing I wouldn't be satisfied until I could kiss him, knowing that beyond any shadow of a doubt I loved him, no one else, just Iggy….

And then it was gone. Iggy sighed as he released his hold on me.

"Sorry. That was just getting too weird for me Max. You're a nice girl and all, but you're not my type, and I wouldn't want to get your boyfriend any more pissed at me than he already is. Besides, I already have-"

He couldn't finish the sentence, because my fist had found its way into his face. Woops.

"You ever try and do that to me again, and I swear, I will make your life a living hell until the day you die. And then I'll follow you to the real hell and make you miserable there too."

He was grimacing and holding his nose. "If this isn't hell already, then what is?" he asked. He was bleeding, and I noticed Nudge run into the other room to grab some paper towels.

"How does castration sound?" I asked, lowering my voice. I moved away then, sitting back down in my chair as I watched the horror cross his face.

"You wouldn't-"

"Watch me."

Nudge helped him staunch the blood with the paper towels, looking torn.

"Umm, okay. Well, he definitely has this power. So that's kind of cool," Nudge said, trying to break the awkward silence. Fang was silently fuming, the anger radiating off him in palpable waves. Gazzy looked horrified by what he had just witnessed. Ella seemed torn between my side and Iggy's. And Angel…

"What's castration?"

An even more awkward silence followed.

"It's like… when you get your pets fixed," I said, hoping my explanation would satisfy her. Of course, there is no end to the curiosity of a seven year old. Sadly.

"Oh, so they don't have babies? Why don't you want Iggy to have babies?"

There were a million different answers to that question. _Because I don't want him spreading his stupidity to the next generation. Because maybe if he didn't have hormones anymore he'd stop being such a stupid teenage boy. Because he just made me freaking fall in love with him and undid it in less than a minute and I'm angry that he got such a bizarre power that he could use against us._

"It was a joke honey. Never mind," I said.

"Oh," Angel said. I could tell by the look on her face, however, that she had read my mind and was mulling over those reasons in her head.

"Iggy, how long have you had this power? Why didn't you tell us about it?" Nudge asked, sounding heartbroken. She _had _been following him around a lot recently, no matter what she might try and say to the contrary. And he hadn't used his new power on her; she'd just fallen in love with him on her own.

"I just… I didn't know. I was kind of distracted by this girl since before then. So when this power showed up, I decided to use it to help get her to like me. And I figured you guys wouldn't approve," he said.

"Hell no. I don't approve of you making people into mindless love drones," I said. I shuddered at the memory of it. My mind had just turned to mush. Iggy flavored mush.

"I turn them back afterwards, I promise. I haven't left anyone like that. And Gloria, I'm not even going to use it on her. I just want to get close to her. That's why I've been going to those gamblers anonymous meetings."

If I wasn't so disgusted with Iggy's new power, I might have thought it sweet that he was going to woo this girl the old fashioned way. But I was. And I didn't. Besides, the pitiful face Nudge was pulling kind of made me want to punch Iggy again for loving someone else.

"You could have told us," Fang muttered. Well, hypocrite of the year award goes to the silent guy telling his friend to be more talkative.

"I know. I was gonna, eventually. But I kind of got caught up in it. It's pretty awesome to have that sort of power over someone. Sorry Max," he said, adding the last bit like an afterthought.

"Does it work on guys?" Nudge asked. I could tell she was trying to make conversation with Iggy, just to bring his attention back to her.

"I don't know. Haven't thought to try it out. Gazzy, Fang, you up for a little experiment?" he asked, grinning menacingly.

Gazzy bolted into the other room, and Fang just crossed his arms and inched slowly away.

"I'll take that as a no. But it should work on them. I don't see why it wouldn't," Iggy said.

And at that moment, my mom chose to come back into the house, arms full of groceries and an exhausted look on her face. Being the good daughter that I am (read: wanting to get out of the other conversation as badly as I could), I went to give her a hand. Gazzy joined us as well, and seemed unwilling to go near Iggy again, even tiptoeing when he had to go past him, as if Iggy couldn't hear every movement in the house like it was right next to him. Super hearing might not technically have been a power of his, but it sure seemed like it was.

"You alright?"

I almost jumped as Fang cornered me from behind.

"Jesus. You're lucky I didn't have something heavy or pointy in my hand," I said, waving a loaf of bread ineffectually at him.

He took it from me and shrugged. "This works just fine. I know that you loaf me," he said, smiling and hitting me playfully with it. To avoid the awkwardness of what he'd just said, I rolled my eyes and took it back from him.

"If you keep on using puns like this, you're going to replace Iggy as number one on my least-favorite-Flock-member list," I said.

"Which gets me back to my original question. You're feeling okay? No Iggy powers lingering around in your brain?"

I shook my head. "Nope. All clean. I'm creeped out as hell, but it's gone. Hopefully never to return."

"Cool. I got a little worried for a minute there," he said, chuckling quietly.

"What, jealous?" I asked teasingly.

"A little," he said. His honesty took me aback and I quickly turned away, examining a head of broccoli as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.

"Well, I've got to go out. I'm going to meet Gloria at her cousin's house," Iggy said simply, pulling on his shoes. Ella looked ready to accompany him.

"We're just about to sit down and have dinner," my mom said, giving the two of them a disapproving look. Not surprised, though; had she known about Iggy's new girlfriend as well?

Were the five of us the only ones who had been out of the loop? Half of Mesa was probably gossiping about the two of them already, and here were the five of us bird kids, cooped (heh) up at home, doing… what exactly? Saving the world seemed to have been put on hold, or maybe just solved. Either the world had saved itself, or it was giving us some time to grow up before making us go back to the grind of crazy scientists and experiments and ass kicking. And so we'd spent the past year lazing around the house like a bunch of bums. We'd sure learned a lot about pop culture, and we'd done some productive stuff (Ella's required reading for school had become our required reading too), but what were we really accomplishing? Was this where we were going to spend the rest of our lives?

"I hope so," Angel said, coming up beside me, giving my hand a squeeze.

"Me too," I whispered to her. Was it the truth? I didn't really know yet.

"I'll be right back, I'm just going to take him to the bus stop, he knows the way from there," Ella said.

"And he's not going to be back, I take it. Family dinners aren't an option, though. You're not going to abandon everyone here for one girl you've known for all of a month," my mom replied. Her tone was no nonsense; she kind of sounded like me, actually. She could be so badass sometimes.

Iggy sighed but didn't argue, kicking off his shoes with maybe a bit too much gusto. Gazzy ducked as it whizzed by his ear.

Dinner at the Martinez's was something my mom had come up with to keep us all working functionally, given that there were now seven kids/teenagers packed into a small house, probably meant for four or five at most. She tried to make us communicate, something we'd all figured out was a necessity after our first few weeks of disastrous conflict. And having us do all of this touchy feely stuff during dinner kept us from all bolting the moment any uncomfortable topics were brought up. Food is like duck tape. It sticks people together (Disclaimer: do not tape your friends together. We did that one time with Gazzy and Fang. Worst. Idea. Ever.)

"So you finally told them about your girlfriend?" my mom asked as she put the food on the table, maneuvering around the rest of us as we laid out our plates and silverware.

"Yeah," Iggy said. He still seemed kind of irritated that he wouldn't be able to go see her, but sat down nonetheless. No doubt the tantalizing scents of the Italian food my mom had brought home were anchoring him to his chair. Iggy _did_ prioritize food before girls, after all.

We chatted while we ate, which is how I learned about Angel's art experiments she'd been doing with chalk on the back lawn, about a chemical that Gazzy had ordered off the internet (Warning, highly explosive. Do not give to children under eighteen. Right), and way more than I had _ever_ wanted to know about _Dancing with the Stars_, courtesy of Nudge.

Afterwards, we all helped clean up dinner and neatened things up. We all did chores around the house, since my mom had a job and Ella had school- we didn't really have too much to occupy our time. Chores were the least we could do.

It had begun to rain during dinner, the sort of intense rain that you only got very rarely in the desert, but when it happened, it was crazy- flash flood sort of crazy.

"Great," Ella mumbled, sitting by the window and watching our yard begin to fill with water.

"It's okay. The plants needed watering anyways," Angel said, perky and smiling. What a budding optimist she was. As much as I was a pessimist myself, I was happy for her. Optimism wasn't a luxury we'd been granted before this. For her to see the bright side of things meant that there had to _be_ a bright side in the first place.

"Oh crap, I left my car windows down," my mom said, rushing out of the house in a blur.

"That sucks," Iggy muttered, then stretched. "Well, I guess I'm heading to bed, since none of you are going to make my evening interesting."

After he was gone, Nudge edged surreptitiously towards me.

"So what was it like? You were all over him," she said.

I rolled my eyes. "It wasn't fun." On a scale of one to ten, it was having your eyes eaten by hamsters.

"Really? I mean, you're not still feeling in love with him are you? Because if you are, maybe you should tell him, so he can take it out. I mean, he might have just accidentally left a bit of it in your head. It's nobody's fault, really, but you should get it seen to right away before it gets-"

I put a hand over her mouth. "It's gone. Believe me. I'm not going to try and jump his bones. He's all yours. Besides, I'm already…" I halted midway through my sentence. "I'm already busy with other stuff. I don't have time for a boy friend," I said, almost tripping over the words.

I mentally hit myself as I caught sight of Fang out of the corner of my eye. Why had I gone and said something stupid like that? Now he was going to think I was talking about him, telling him to back off or something. In reality, I had been about to say, "I already have Fang." But here I am, Max the chicken, too scared to say anything to him. I swear, give me a pack and a half of erasers over this emotion stuff any day.

I heard Angel giggle from nearby and made the executive decision not to strangle her. I was the bigger person here. That might have seemed glaringly obvious from the fact that she was a seven year old, but I still felt the need to justify it to myself.

My mom came back in, soaking wet, and grumpy.

"I hate the rain. That's why I live in the desert. So why am I still getting all this frigging rain?" she asked, irritation leaking into her voice.

Nudge had moved to the living room and was flipping through the channels, and seeing that my options for the evening were quickly narrowing down, I decided to get some rest. Right. Like I ever get to do that.

"Where's Iggy?"

Five minutes after I'd finally crawled under the covers, Gazzy burst into the girl's room and started looking under the bed, in the closet, everywhere that might conceivably hide a fifteen year old bird kid.

"Not in here," I said into my pillow.

"Max, we can't find him." Fang's voice was serious. I peered out from under the blanket, willing everyone to go away.

But they didn't. It was never that easy. I got up, threw on a coat and a pair of pants, and went out to find Iggy and his gambling addict of a girlfriend.

Isn't life grand?

**End of chapter two. The next chapter is going to be in Fang's POV- I think I might switch back between him and Max every chapter or couple of chapters, maybe putting Iggy or one of the others in there occasionally. Any thoughts on this?**


	3. Raindrops and Rooftops

**Yeah, update time! I don't know how regular I'm going to be with this, even though I'd like to have the time to make a chapter every day or so. Still, real life gets in the way, you know how it is. I'm thinking every couple of days- hopefully no more than a week between chapters.**

**I'd like to give a special shout out to my first reviewer, MaximumRider99! It means a lot that you took the time to write me a review(two, actually), and I really appreciate it. And thank you to everyone who reads my stories- it's the thought of everyone out there, the audience I'll probably never meet, that keeps me writing. That, and the fun factor. **

**Happy Reading!**

Fang

"I'm gonna kill him."

Beside me, head bent against the rain, Max chuckled.

"Don't let him get too close, though. He might try and seduce you."

I rolled my eyes. Iggy might be my closest guy friend, but there were certain lines you didn't cross. Like sneaking out in the middle of the _only_ rain storm in the entire month of July and going to see your addict girlfriend. Doesn't bros before hoes still count for anything?

"Impossible, I-"

I swallowed my words, stopping before I embarrassed myself. I'd been about to say something sappy. _My love's already taken_, or maybe, if I was feeling particularly poetic_, There's no room in my heart for Iggy when I have you Max_. Jesus. My brain was turning into a hallmark card.

Instead, I did what I do best; said nothing. It was the easiest way to deal with the world sometimes. When nothing I said could help the situation, what was the point of talking?

_Max likes it when you talk_.

That was my voice. No, not a Voice, capital V, but just my voice. Call me schizophrenic, but I tend to have conversations in my head with this voice. It helps me work things out when I can't talk to anybody real. Which is a lot of the time. There's a lot of stuff I wish I could talk about with Max, and even a bit with Iggy (guy stuff, you know), but until I developed the social skills to do that, it was best to just keep it to myself.

_Max also likes it when I do the laundry. And I've hardly cleaned my own underwear once since we've been here._

_Point taken._

"Shouldn't be too much farther," Ella said from up above. We only had two umbrellas, one that Ella was sharing with Nudge, and another that Gazzy was sharing with Angel. Max and I, being the oldest, had foregone the umbrellas for the sake of the others. And so we were soaked through.

If it had been up to Max or any of us, we would have just let Iggy enjoy his night out with Gloria. But Dr. M had insisted that since he snuck out, we had to go get him. She wasn't a big disciplinarian or anything- she knew better than that- but she still had rules. Besides, when the blind kid leaves the house in the middle of the night on some kind of love crusade, it's probably a good idea to go get him before he hurts himself. Or burns down the city.

We finally reached a bus stop, and the six of us huddled under the thin plastic sheeting to get out of the rain.

"It'll be another five minutes before the next bus comes," Ella informed us. And so we spent the next five minutes huddling at the bus stop like a bunch of damp, irritable squirrels. Not my idea of a fun Friday night. When the bus finally arrived, we filed dutifully into it, still damp and only getting crankier as the moments ticked by.

I, for one, was occupied with thoughts of revenge. How could I possibly ever repay Iggy for this wonderful little journey we were going on… the possibilities bloomed in my mind, each one more deliciously terrible than the last.

"You look like you're going to take out that little kid up there. Might want to tone it down a bit," Max murmured. I snapped back to the present; I was staring at a kid sitting at the front of the bus, and he looked like he was about to wet himself. I could only imagine what the look on my face had been.

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. I thoroughly intend on kicking Iggy's ass once we find him," Max said, shrugging like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Did I mention that I freaking love this girl?

_Maybe you should mention it. To her, that is_.

No way. I mean, I could do it like I was kidding any day. Puns and awkward jokes were one thing. But a sincere and open talk about my feelings… yeah. Not my forte.

"This is our stop," Ella said, pulling the cord for our stop. It had finally stopped raining, so the evening was already looking up… right? We filed obediently off the bus and stood there. And stood there. Staring.

"This Gloria chick, is she…"

"Yeah. She's pretty rich," Ella said, shrugging. The house in front of us was a serious mansion; three or four stories, gated entrance, everything. I even spotted a Porsche parked in the open garage. And from the sounds of things in there, some sort of party was taking place. I could almost feel the bass vibrating through my feet, even all the way out here in the lawn.

"At least when he aims, he aims high," Nudge said, sounding disappointed.

"Aside from the gambling addiction," Ella said with a dismissive wave of the hand.

Max wasted no time in going up to the front gate and ringing the buzzer.

"Can I help you?"

"Yeah. A friend of ours is in there. Goes by the name of Iggy," Max said, all business.

"No Iggy here."

"Maybe James, then."

"Nope. No James."

Max rolled her eyes. "Listen, the kid's blind. Do you have any blind kids in there?" she asked.

"Hold on a sec."

After a long moment of silence, the voice returned.

"What would your name be?"

"Max. He knows me."

"Uhh, no, your name is not on the list. Sorry," he said.

"Of course I'm not on the list, I've never been here before, I just want to talk to Iggy," Max said.

"Sorry, maybe I was unclear. When I said you weren't on the list, it was the nice way of saying, I was explicitly told not to let you in."

Max let out a groan of frustration, and I stepped forward. "What about Fang? Is that name on the list?"

Silence, then, "Yeah, you can come on in."

"Wait, what? Fang can come in but I can't?" Max asked, looking around at the rest of us as if to say, _Are you hearing this guy?_

After that, the others all ran their names past the security guy, and get this, only me and Gazzy had permission to enter.

"Iggy's a frigging sexist," Max said, looking between the two of us.

"Just ignore it. It's probably something to do with his new power. Or maybe it's something meant only for male eyes," I said. I had to stop my imagination from running wild at that. Strip club, anybody?

As Gazzy and I were waved through, I yelled over my shoulder.

"We'll grab him and be back in a minute."

And really, I didn't intend on being very long. But once we got inside, I realized what a strange place we had entered. We were obviously in the midst of some sort of party, and people milled about all around us. Techno music rumbled in the background, and dance lights flared across the floor every now and again.

"Stick close to me, okay Gazzy?"

He was staring at some people gyrating to music nearby, but nodded at me dimly. Great, maybe it hadn't been the best idea to bring the nine year old into the middle of the party. But if we were going to get Iggy out, having an extra pair of hands couldn't hurt.

We wound our way through the crowd, searching for a blonde head, or maybe even a pair of wings- love could make you do strange things, I of all people knew that- but didn't see him anywhere downstairs.

We combed through the second story just as we had the first, occasionally stopping to ask people if they had seen Iggy or Gloria. Most of the people were drunk, but still gave us a firm no.

We went through the other floors as well, coming up empty handed until we reached the roof. It was a large open area, protected from the rain by a clear glass roof, making the whole thing feel like a greenhouse, complete with the humid, stifling air. The party was much more subdued up there, and most of the partygoers were sitting in lawn chairs drinking and talking. And a significant portion of them were making out or feeling each other up. Yup. Definitely a mistake to bring Gazzy here. I couldn't leave him alone either, so we pushed through and searched the crowd for Iggy.

We finally found him sitting near the edge of the roof with a girl on his lap.

"Iggy," I said, after failing to get his attention by coughing rather loudly. He finally pulled away from the girl he'd been making out with and smiled.

"Fang. Glad to see you could make it," he said.

"Come on, let's go home," I said.

"Wait, what? You just got here? Aren't you going to hang out for a while?"

I leaned close. "Iggy, Dr. M is pissed. And more importantly, so is Max. Just come home while there's still a chance she'll let you off easy," I said.

Iggy let out a long breath. "Come on, can't you just say you didn't find me? Tell her I'm not here. I'll be back in a couple of hours," he said, waving a hand at me. The girl on his lap, Gloria, I assumed, had her hands hooked around the back of his neck, and was enjoying herself a lot. And was that a hickey?

A couple of girls who had been sitting nearby turned to look at Gazzy and I.

"Ig, who's your friend over there?" said one girl, her words slurred as she fluttered her eyelashes at me.

"That'd be Nick." Iggy said.

"You didn't tell me you had such sexy friends," she said.

I really hoped she was only talking about me; Gazzy was nine, and I don't care how drunk you are, but a nine-year old can't be sexy. Cute. Adorable. A whole slew of other things. But not sexy. And the drunk girl heading towards us was clearly only interested in me, which on the one hand relived me for Gazzy's sake, but on the other hand made me feel pretty nervous for my own skin.

_Why are you nervous? It's not like you're new to girls throwing themselves at you. There was Lissa, after all. Is it because of Max? Are you afraid of her finding out? Because contrary to popular belief, she doesn't have eyes everywhere._

I shook myself. Sometimes my voice was the devil on my shoulder, sometimes the angel. Sometimes, it was this weird mischievous demon that I couldn't help but picture with Iggy's face.

"Iggy, you're going to be in some deep shit for this. If you come down now, I might be able to get Max to let you off the hook," I said.

"Ooh, who's Max? Another one of your hot friends? Invite him up here," the girl said, putting a hand on my arm. She looked like she might fall over.

"Max is his girlfriend," Gazzy said.

This was greeted with silence from all involved. And before I could defend myself against the accusation (It's not true! I wish it was, but it isn't!), a shout pierced the sounds of the party, halting all movement on the roof.

"Iggy, I swear to god, if you don't come down here right now, I will END YOU."

And there she was. I peered over the edge of the roof and spotted Max and the others still standing outside the gate, looking up at us with craned necks. I waved meekly.

"Believe me, castration will be the least of your worries. I will destroy everything you hold dear in life. GET DOWN HERE."

"Who's that?" Gloria asked.

"That would be Max," Iggy said, gently taking her off his lap and standing up. "I'd better go," he said, then paused. "I've got to grab my bag."

"What, were you planning on spending the night here?" I asked.

He shrugged, hiding a grin. "You never know. A man's got to be prepared," he said. Gloria giggled and kissed him on the cheek.

"Where is it?"

"Should be in the biggest bedroom on the third floor," he said.

"Gazzy, take Iggy out to Max. I'll be down in a minute," I said. We went our separate ways, leaving a still yelling Max to hash out her differences with the people on the roof.

I searched through the bedrooms on the third floor, wondering which one was supposed to be the biggest one, until I stumbled one that dwarfed the others by a mile. And I might have been tipped off by the name, written in curly pink lettering, on the door: Gloria.

Inside, I moved past a bed topped with with pink, heart-shaped pillows, and walls that were painted, you guessed it, pink. Iggy was probably lucky to be blind, if he was going after this girl. I looked around for Iggy's bag and found it tucked halfway under the bed. I quickly slung it over my shoulder and went back out into the party, then wound my way back downstairs to the others. Outside, Max was berating Iggy, who had visibly deflated from the confident, energetic kid who'd had a girl sitting on his lap on the roof.

"I swear to god, there will be no power on earth that will save you from my wrath…"

She stopped as she saw me, and paused before sighing and returning to normal. "Let's just go home," she said, the energy draining out of her as I watched. It was late, we were tired, and there would be plenty of time to make Iggy pay for this in the morning.

And so we walked through the rain to the nearest bus stop, Iggy looking glum and the rest of us just looking wet.

"What's this?" Max asked, coming up beside me.

"What's what?" Girls. It's like they were intentionally vague sometimes.

She held up a note. "This was taped on Iggy's bag. Is it yours?" she asked. It was a soggy piece of paper folded in half, ink stains smudged down the length of it. Iggy was walking a ways back, and was being subjected to Nudge's account of how mad Dr. M was going to be when he got home.

"Not mine," I said, meeting her eyes. I didn't have to ask what she was going to do, and she didn't have to ask if I wanted any part of it. Sometimes we reach these understandings without ever saying a word. Knowing someone about as well as you know yourself has its perks. I leaned close as she unfolded the note and read it quietly under her breath.

"_Dear Flock-_"

Well that wasn't exactly the opening we were expecting. The smudged ink made a few of the lines hard to read, but Max picked up where it was legible again:

"_-These next few weeks may seem confusing at first, but please, just know that this is all part of the plan. It's perfectly natural to be a bit confused, maybe a bit angry. I'm sorry that I couldn't come tell you this in person. Once the first of you develops a new power, you'll have some idea of what to expect. And once the last of you finishes with their power, I'll try to make some contact. I hope I can visit the six of you in person to explain everything. Until then, best of luck. I hope you'll understand the purpose behind all of this by the time it's over. _

_With love;_

_Jeb."_

Max and I had stopped walking, and the others just went past us like nothing had happened. Max crumpled the note in her hand, fury visible in the shaking muscles of her fingers. I raised my eyes to meet hers, and again we shared a wordless conversation. And in my head, my pesky little voice said it best.

_Well, shit._

**Well, what do you think? Reviews are much appreciated-even the constructively critical kind. I'm new at this, after all. Thanks for reading!**


	4. An Exercize in Restraint

**Here it is, Chapter 4. Not too much action here, but there are a lot of foundations laid for future action. And future Fax... enjoy!**

Chapter 4

Fang's POV

Iggy was under house arrest, which meant that the rest of us had more of a reason than usual to go outside.

Perhaps more importantly, Max was somewhere between pissed off and freaked out about Jeb's note. She had immediately snapped back into old-Max-mode, and her first instinct was to flee, to take the five of us and fly as far away as we could. It had taken a lot of coaxing on my part to get her back to reasonable Max, to the Max who had started to feel at home here in Mesa, to the Max who wanted to protect that home and all that it meant for the rest of us.

With all of Max's attention on the note, Iggy had escaped most of her wrath. The same could not be said of Dr. Martinez. She had grounded him- which for us is both literal and figurative. No leaving the house except when one of us escorted him somewhere, and no flying. And he was on double chore duty. I could tell Iggy was just itching to get out of here and find Gloria, but while we were living under Dr. Martinez's roof, her word was law. Well, Max's word was the ultimate law, but Dr. Martinez was her mom, so she had a secondary sort of power because of that.

And so Iggy was moping around in the living room with Gazzy and Ella, while the rest of us were outside enjoying the fresh air.

"Hey, just checking in."

Max sat down next to me on the porch steps.

"I know what you're going to ask, and no, I haven't developed any new powers," I said.

She rolled her eyes. "Thanks. You know, sometimes I just want to talk. I'm not always here on business."

"Ah, this is a visit for pleasure then?" I asked. I had intended for it to come out smooth, maybe a bit sexy, and it did. But Max had this incredible way of looking so awkward about these things that freaking Brad Pitt would be left feeling a little strange. Whatever confidence I'd had, whatever mood I'd been trying to give the situation, it just kind of melted away. I twiddled my thumbs in the awkward aftermath of my attempt at innuendo.

"So I was thinking, we should have a project for the summer. Regular kids have summer homework and summer camps and summer school. We need a way to keep ourselves occupied, so we don't go too crazy over this new power thing," she said.

"Right. So you mean that you need a way to keep your mind off of the new power thing. Because everyone else seems fine with it. Iggy definitely is, and the others are probably kind of looking forward to getting new powers," I said.

Max leaned in close. "It's not exactly the new powers I'm worried about. It's the fact that Jeb knows about it, and that we're all supposed to get one, and that it's happening on a schedule, so close together. It just reeks of an experiment to me," she said.

"What, you think the white coats are doing this to us?"

She shrugged. "It's a possibility. Maybe they've been dosing our food or something. Maybe it's in the water supply. Maybe they've been injecting us in our sleep," she said.

Now she was starting to sound a bit paranoid. Still, that paranoia was kind of warranted for us, and it had saved our asses on more than a few occasions.

"Aren't you worried? I mean, our other powers were kind of useful, but Iggy's power is seduction… it could really be misused," she said.

I shrugged. "If it were Ari or Jeb getting a new power, I'd be worried. But it's us. Whatever new power we get, we'll use it to help ourselves out. Any advantage we get, we should take," I said.

Max rested her chin on her knees and looked out at Nudge and Angel, who were swinging from a tire swing we'd set up a few weeks ago.

"And at the end of it? After we've developed our powers, Jeb's going to come talk to us. Do you really think it's going to be _just_ a talk?"

I shook my head. Not with Jeb's history. "You think he's gonna try to take us in?"

"It would make the most sense. If we've got new powers, there's more he can test us on. And if we're developing powers left and right, who's to say we won't develop more. Whatever use he has for us, whatever plan he has set out for our future, these powers will probably just help him more," she said.

I shrugged. "Well, if he's not coming until after we've all developed our powers, we don't have anything to worry about yet. Only Iggy's there so far. We've got plenty of time to figure out what we're going to do," I said.

"If we're going to leave," Max said.

"Right."

She sighed and leaned against me, shaking her head. "Why does talking to you always make me feel better?"

_Because you love me._

Jesus, was I glad Max wasn't the mind reader in the family. Angel, on the other hand, was watching us with mirthful eyes from the tire swing.

"Because I'm the only one with common sense around here," I said. I didn't want to overdo it. I'd already fallen flat on my face once today. No need to make a habit of it.

I wanted to wrap my arm around her, but felt like if I moved I might ruin the moment and scare her away. So instead, I let her lean against me, enjoyed feeling her peacefully breathing, the smell of her hair so close to me.

An explosion boomed from behind us. Max and I both took a moment to look at each other before turning to look at the house.

"I'm thinking that having Iggy put on house arrest might not have been such a good idea."

Max laughed and stood up. "Time to go kick some ass."

God she was sexy when she got angry.

…

Later, after we'd finished cleaning up the living room and had sent Iggy and Gazzy off to separate corners of the house, Ella dropped another bomb on us. Luckily it was a metaphorical one this time.

"So, uh, don't tell mom, but… I've got a boyfriend."

Squeals of delight from Nudge and Angel, wiggled eyebrows from Max. She might have squealed too, if it weren't impossible for Maximum Ride to do anything close to "squeal." It felt blasphemous just thinking it. I shuddered and buried my node in the comic I'd been reading. Batman. You can't get any more badass than Bruce Wayne.

I also felt like maybe I wasn't supposed to be here for this conversation. Ella and I didn't get together and talk about crushes very much. Shocker, I know.

"Who is he? Do I know him? Does he go to school with you? How old is he? Have to gone on a date? How long have you been going out? Have you kissed?" Nudge spat the string of questions out at Ella, rapid fire.

"His name's Tyler. He's a couple of grades ahead of me. Super cute."

I'm sure this thirteen year old boy enjoyed being called cute. If Max ever called me cute, I'd have an issue with it. Or at least I'd like to think I would. Maybe it would sound different coming from her. To keep my thoughts from going dangerous places, I concentrated on the kickass fight scene in the comic in front of me. Absolutely nothing cute here. I was safe, back in a man-friendly zone.

"I think we should meet him," Max said, crossing her arms and giving Ella a knowing look. She rolled her eyes.

"I'm not telling mom for a reason you know; I don't need someone looking over my shoulder all the time. I'm old enough to decide things for myself. When you were my age, you were already out on your own. You didn't even have any parents to make your life a living hell," Ella said.

Max rolled her eyes. "We didn't have the luxury of parents. You have no idea how nice it would have been to have a parent. The only person looking out for me was myself. And Fang," Max said, giving me a nudge and grinning.

I looked up and pretended to be confused as to why my name had been mentioned, but Angel giggled. "Come on Fang, don't play dumb. You've been listening this whole time," she said.

I would have stuck my tongue out at her, but that would have been immature. Instead, I just shot her a glare that spoke volumes of the revenge I would get later. Then, being a responsible adult (okay, I was fifteen, not quite an adult, but pretty darn close), I decided to weigh in Ella's issue.

"Ella, you're lucky that you have a mom who's worried about you. There's so many things you don't have to deal with yet because she's dealing with them for you," I said.

Ella shrugged. "Still, doesn't mean she needs to hover over my shoulder every minute of the day. Same thing with you guys. Iggy should be allowed to do what he wants," she said.

"Iggy should learn not to be so irresponsible," Max said, her eyes narrowing as she looked at the scorched areas on the floor, the last traces of the earlier explosion.

"One day she'll stop hovering around everything you do, and you'll almost miss it," I said. I caught Max staring at me as I said this, and met her eyes. Who was I talking about, really? Dr. Martinez? Jeb, our former parent and protector, turned enemy and traitor? Or maybe I was talking about Max herself, who had started letting us grow up by ourselves during our year of safety. Maybe I missed the situations where we were together all the time, where we had to be close knit because death lurked around the corner (okay, I definitely didn't miss the death part), and if you didn't have a shoulder to lean on then you had nothing to lean on because the world itself was moving, fluid around you, constantly shifting and untrustworthy. Maybe I longed for the days when Max and I had to cling to each other because we were the only certain things around, before the world had settled down and become real and tangible, something you could get lost in. Maybe. There were a lot of maybe's there.

Nudge groaned. "Okay guys, whatever. Back to the important stuff. How tall is he?"

I went back to my comic, pretending again to be uninterested, and lamenting the fact that we lived a life where I could ever be anything but interested in Max.

…

Dr. Martinez liked to picture her dinners as a sort of perfect family bonding experience where the eight of us would talk about our feelings and overcome obstacles and then all hold hands and sing kumbaya with our eyes closed. This, luckily, was far from the truth. We were more likely to have a food fight. In fact, we'd sung campfire songs a grand total of zero, count it, zero times, while we'd had food fights twelve times, excluding the times that a small amount of food was accidentally thrown at someone.

So when Dr. Martinez saw that Ella was excited about something, and had been talking to Nudge and Angel about it all day, she had clearly seen it as her duty as a mother to dig into these secrets at dinner. In front of everyone. I had defended her earlier, but Ella did have a point- parents could get pretty annoying. Needy, even.

Ella remained resolute, though, and so did everyone else. Luckily Dr. M didn't even think to ask me about Ella's love life, because I probably would have spilled everything. I don't have defenses in place for these sorts of things. A man can only prepare for so many things in life.

Luckily, Gazzy steered things back into neutral territory.

"So, is Gloria rich or something? Because I thought you said she had gambled herself into a hole? But her house was super big."

Leave it to the second youngest to pick up on a big hole in Iggy's story. I turned the full force of my Glare at him. Lesser men had died from that Glare, but Iggy just shrugged. He had discovered my one weakness: blind people.

"She has. That's not her house; it's her family's. She kind of had to move back in with her parents after she gambled away all her money. And a bit of theirs. I was going to use the money I got to give her a chance back out on her own," Iggy said.

"Just how old is this girl?" Dr. M asked.

"I dunno. Eighteen, nineteen maybe."

Nudge almost spit her meatloaf all over the table, her eyes bugged out of her head as she stared at Iggy.

"Got a thing for older girls, eh?" I asked, elbowing him and holding back a grin.

_So do you, you know. Max is older than you by a couple of months._

_Shut up and stop being right all the time._

"Maybe. I think I just like girls in general," Iggy said.

"Me too!" Gazzy added.

Dr. M sighed and pushed her food around her plate with her fork. "Kids, I have something to tell you," she said.

There it was; the tone of voice that only an adult could use. And Max on occasion, when she was particularly intent on making us feel miserable. She was about to tell us something we wouldn't like, but couldn't do anything about. This was going to be fun.

"I've been thinking a lot about the six of you lately. About your future. I know you think you're going to have to leave again and go back to your mission, and that may be true. But you've been here for a year and there's no reason to think that you might not be here for several more years."

Yeah. No reason except for Jeb's note and our sudden development of powers. So no reason at all.

"And if you are ever going to make it out in the real world, you're going to need to support yourselves."

"I think I know where this is going," Iggy said.

"Enlighten me," Max said.

"Gambling."

Dr. M sighed and shook her head. "No gambling. No powers. No wings. Just pretend for a moment that you were all normal kids. What would you be doing?"

Sunbathing on the beach. Drinking copious amounts of alcohol. Being moody. Worrying about girls. Wait a minute, what was she trying to get at here?

"Going to school," Angel said, supplying Dr. M with just the answer she was looking for. Obviously she'd cheated and looked at the answer sheet, though.

"Exactly."

"Uhh, technically not. It's summertime. Ella's on vacation, and she's a normal kid," Iggy put in.

Max was being unusually silent, and I turned to see her fuming, shaking her head slowly back and forth.

"No. No way. We're not going to school again."

I agreed with her a hundred percent there. School had been an interesting experiment (Jeez, that sentence was so full of double meanings, I don't even know where to start), but it had ended in disaster. Not to mention that pretending to be a normal kid sucked even more than actually being a normal kid.

"Max, I've thought a lot about this, and really, you should at least give it a try. You'd start the school year next week with Ella. You'd be in a new school, a smaller one this time. You can start over. And back to my original point; if you ever want to get a job and live decently later on, you'll need a high school diploma. This is a starting point. I only want to see you all succeed in life. Maybe you can even go off to college after this. Think about the possibilities. Just because you have wings doesn't mean you're limited. You can be anything." Dr M's smile was infectious, and I saw Nudge and Gazzy pick it up immediately. Angel was already there, and was looking at Max to see what her reaction would be. And Max, well, she just looked at me.

"We need to talk," she said under her breath.

I nodded, and the two of us got up and went to stand on the porch.

"I don't like this. Especially not now, with everything going on," Max said.

"Same here. So are we giving it a no, then?"

She hesitated, then shrugged. "The others seem to like the idea. Even Iggy… Is his girlfriend still in high school?"

"Maybe. That would explain him. But everyone else… why would they be so willing to go back. I mean, they do remember what happened last time, right?"

Max gave me a look that told me that she remembered. All of it. I swallowed.

"It's been a year. We've grown up a bit, put some time between us and that whole period of our lives. I don't know, maybe it could be different," she said.

"And our powers? What if they interfere?"

"If they do, then we pull out. Simple as that. We're not attached to this whole school thing. It's not a necessity. Just… an exercise."

I didn't like it, but I saw her point.

"Fine. But this is for the others," I said.

"Right."

The others were all looking anxiously at us when we returned.

"And?" Iggy asked.

"Yes." Excited cheers broke out. "But only for now," Max added.

"Sounds good. I'll have to take you school supply shopping when I go with Ella tomorrow," Dr. M said.

"Does that mean school CLOTHES?" Nudge said, her voice rising to a pitch that I had previously thought belonged only to squirrels and small birds.

_You hate school. Why did you agree to it?_

I paused, then looked at the answer, arm around Angel. Max didn't look as if she was nervous about school and a million different other things, even though I knew she was. She just looked beautiful.

_You're so whipped_.

I knew it.

…

Breakfast started around ten on most normal days, but Dr. M had gotten up early so we could get to the mall before the big crowds and get a head start on our shopping. She let the smells of breakfast be our alarm clock, and I stumbled out of bed only slightly after Iggy.

"Where's Max? We can't go without her," Angel said, finishing up her pancakes at the same time as the rest of us were just sitting down to eat ours. Everyone but Max was up, dressed and ready for the day.

"Someone's got to wake her up," Ella said. As if on cue, six pairs of eyes turned to me.

I heaved myself back out of my chair and groaned. "Fine. But you owe me one," I said to no one in particular. Morning Max was closer to a grizzly bear than a human as far as temperament went.

"I believe in you. Come back safe," Gazzy said, suppressing a giggle.

I went down the hall to Max's room and knocked gently on the door. No need to anger the beast any more than necessary. After another knock, and still no answer, I went in, cautiously of course, not knowing what I might find.

Max's hair was visible as a pouf of frizz and curls on her pillow. Other than that, she was just a lump under her oversized comforter. No movement. I went over to her and leaned down. "Max. Come on. Wake up. We've got to go."

Nothing.

I prodded her on the shoulder, and finally got a moan out of her.

"Max, we've got to go shopping."

"What are you talking about?"

There, she was capable of speech, at least.

"Come on, we're all having breakfast. We're just waiting for you."

She turned over and peered up at me with bleary eyes. I swallowed. Even with bed-head and red eyes, she was kind of gorgeous. Not perfect, but perfect is boring anyways.

"Why the hell are we going shopping?"

"For school supplies, remember? Dr. M said she'd take us."

She squinted at me and managed to pull herself into a sitting position.

"I repeat, why the hell are we going shopping? Ella can buy her own school supplies. She doesn't need six bird kid advisers tagging along."

I raised an eyebrow. Okay, maybe she was still asleep. "They're for us too, Max. We're going to need our own."

"For what?"

"For school."

This really seemed to jolt her awake, and she stared at me with confused and, maybe a little, angry eyes. I took a step backwards. One thing you didn't want to do was anger morning Max.

"Since when are we going to school?"

"Since last night. When you agreed to it."

She looked just about as confused as I felt. "I did? Are you sure?"

I nodded. "You feeling alright? We had an entire conversation about it at dinner. Do you seriously not remember any of that?"

She shook her head, then furrowed her brow, like she was thinking really hard.

"I don't remember… I don't remember anything about dinner last night. The last thing I remember was talking to you about Jeb and our powers on the steps," she said.

I stared at her. "Are you serious?"

"Deadly."

"So you're saying you have no memory whatsoever of the past 12 hours?"

"I guess I am."

Well, this was going to put a damper on our shopping trip.

**There it is, Ladies and Gents. Reviews are appreciated!**


	5. Flock Shopping

**It took me a little longer to update this time, sorry about that guys. But here it is, finally, and as a reward, it's a little bit longer than the others. Enjoy!**

Max

I've been confused a lot in my life. Still, I'd seldom been so disoriented, so lost, as I was in those first few minutes after waking up. I tried to piece things together, and Fang gave me a play by play of how I'd spent the day before (reminding me of just how much time I spend with that kid. It's not healthy), right up until I'd gone to sleep the night before. None of it rang a bell. He couldn't be making it up, though. I could hear the others out in the hallway, and seeing as twelve hours of my life had just disappeared, I could only assume I had some sort of memory loss.

"We can't tell the others," I said, giving Fang a serious look.

"Why not?"

Because it'll worry them. And if we don't know what's causing this, it'll be better to wait it out, see if we can figure out the cause. Then we'll tell them," I said.

"And if it happens again?"

I paused. "Well, the way I see it, there are three options here. One, Jeb is messing with my head. Two, somebody else is messing with my head."

"And three?"

"This is somehow connected to a new power of mine."

Fang chewed his lip thoughtfully, then nodded. "Fine. We'll sit down and figure this out after we get back from school shopping," he said, then straightened and went to the door.

"I'll keep this a secret now, but if things start to get too freaky, I'm telling the others," he said.

I nodded. "Deal."

After he left, I got dressed and tried my best to compose myself. I also put up a mind block, to keep Angel out of my thoughts. And as a finishing touch, I put on a convincing smile, and went out to meet the others.

"God, you took long enough. I thought they were gonna leave without us," Iggy said as I emerged. He was pacing by the door, the others all standing at attention. Apparently, I didn't even get breakfast. I was still a bit disgruntled to find it morning and not mid afternoon, though, so I didn't argue as we filed out the door. Fang handed me a piece of toast as we went outside, and I gave him a thankful smile.

The car ride there made me feel ten times as grateful as I've ever been that we have wings. I mean, sure, flying is one of the greatest parts of being a bird kid just because it's so awesome. It's the sort of thing you never get sick of. But flying also has another advantage; a quick way to get from one place to another without having to be locked up in a tiny tin can with seven other people for an hour.

By the time we arrived at the mall, I was ready to fly off by myself. The only thing that kept me anchored to the ground was the thought of leaving them alone in a crowded mall. There was no way in hell I was letting them go in there without me. Besides, maybe Fang and I could get a minute alone to figure out what was going on. With my memory, I mean. Obviously we have nothing else to figure out, the two of us. Yeah, it sounded like denial, even to me.

I eyed him as we walked, his hands in his pockets, his head down, watching the ground as he walked. The past year had involved a lot of denial. We'd had some moments, some close calls where we'd approached something a little bit beyond best-friendship. And in the calm aftermath, we'd left that scary zone behind. Did it help me relax and avoid the stressful situations that had plagued our relationship during that time? Yes. Did I miss it, just a little bit? Heck yes. Still, he hadn't pushed it. But neither had either of us dated other people; there were no Sam's or Lissa's, though that might change if we went back to school. My stomach soured as I thought of him going on a date with another girl. Of him holding her. Kissing her.

"Eew."

I turned to see Angel staring at me with a disgusted look on her face.

"Stay out of here," I said, tapping my skull.

"It's hard to do when you're pretty much broadcasting it like that," Angel said.

Jeez, was I really? Sometimes it got hard to maintain the mind block, especially when I was experiencing strong emotions. Like when I looked at Fang…

"Oh my god. Someone get these two a room," Angel said under her breath so only I could hear it, then grabbed Ella's hand. "Let's go look at clothes first. We'll meet everyone back in the food court, alright?"

"Be back by three. I've got some work to finish, so we're not staying out late," mom shouted after them as the two girls disappeared into the crowd filing in through the front doors. She turned to look at the rest of us. "Same goes for all of you. And Nudge, Gaz, use the buddy system." She paused. "You too Iggy," she added.

"Let's go see if we can find some equipment," Gazzy said in a stage whisper. Iggy grinned, since we all knew that equipment could only mean one thing; bomb materials. Nudge perked up.

"Uuh, I'll go too!"

Maybe she was a bit too eager to go with Iggy. I sighed. The girl was so clearly crushing on Iggy, everyone but him could see it. It was some strange kind of irony that the blind kid couldn't see when he had a girl falling head over heels for him. And it was an even stranger, crueler sort of irony that had given him the ability to seduce other girls (And boys too. I think our powers are meant to be equal opportunity).

My mom sighed and looked at Fang and I. "Well, I'm going to bath and body works. Either of you up for it?" she asked.

"You know, I really would, but if I'm going to be a good student and all, I should really get some stuff for school…" I faded off.

Fang nodded vigorously. "Me too. Sorry. Otherwise I totally would."

The image of him strolling through bath and body works, looking at towels and soaps and throw pillows was just too ridiculous. I had to swallow my laughter as we walked into the mall.

The two of us merged with the crowd and passed through the food court and on to the main body of the mall.

"Let's stop here and get what we need, then we can talk," Fang said, grabbing my arm and pulling me aside into a small office supply store. We got pens and pencils and paper and a few other things we thought we might need and checked out with the small allowance my mom gave us. Afterwards, we went and bought some ice cream from a small shop and went to sit outside on one of the many picnic tables arranged beside the back end of the parking lot.

"So where exactly does your memory drop off?" Fang asked.

I shrugged. "I guess it was a little after we were talking on the porch. I think I remember going inside, but it kind of gets blurry after that. I was in the living room… and then it was this morning. It was so sudden," I said, then looked at Fang. "What did I do after that?"

He shrugged. "Nothing notable, really. We had a normal day." Then he paused, as if remembering something, and swallowed. "Ella and Nudge talked to you about boy problems," he said, shrugging. I could see there was more to it than that; what was he not telling me.

"And those problems were…"

"Ella has a boyfriend," he said, shrugging. Well, he had given that bit of information up too easily. That wasn't what he was keeping from me.

"And then dinner? And the school decision… remind me again why I agreed to this?" I asked, looking with dismay at our pile of school supplies. The very word "school" sent shivers down my spine.

"The others wanted it. I think Ella's been a bit of a good influence on them. And your mom made a good point about us not really being able to do anything with our lives if we never got high school diplomas."

I chuckled. "Like we're going to be able to do anything with our lives anyways."

Fang gave me a sharp look. "Do you believe that? Do you really think it's so hopeless?"

"You don't?"

He shrugged. "The future isn't set in stone. It's not all planned out for us. We make it ourselves. If we don't want to spend the rest of our lives on the run or in a lab, then we might as well start laying the foundation right now." As much as I hated it, he was right. If there ever came a time when we could fix everything, when we could finally look at Jeb and Itex and the School as something that we'd left behind, then where would we be? We couldn't live off my mom forever. We'd have to put down roots, build our lives. Still, the thought of putting roots down now, when they could still be torn up, terrified me a little.

Fang shrugged. "I don't know. If this doesn't work, then it doesn't work. You said the same thing. This is a trial run," he said, then leaned forward on the table, "Now back to the real issue. Your memory. What if this is a new power of yours?" he asked.

"The power to forget? The power of amnesia? The ability to make myself senile? Sorry, but that seems like it would be the crappiest power ever," I said.

"Maybe it's a side effect of something. Maybe your power is so awesome that your brain had to wipe your memories afterwards," Fang said.

"I hope not. I won't be using it a whole lot then." Maybe not ever. Having twelve hours of your life wiped out was inconvenient at the best of times. If Jeb made good on his promise and yanked us back into a life of danger and excitement, I couldn't afford to be as lost as I had been this morning when I woke up.

"That still leaves the question of the real power, though," I said.

Fang opened his mouth as if to respond, but his gaze slid across me and to something behind me. "Max. We've got some action going on at twelve o clock."

I tensed, expecting the worst. Jeb. Erasers. Our peaceful year was over, and chaos had finally come to claim us once again. I turned on the picnic table bench as quickly as I could.

And it was just my sister. I did a double take. Scratch that. It was my sister and a guy. An older guy. An older guy sucking her face.

"Oh god, I don't want to see that," I said, wrinkling my nose but unable to tear myself away. She had no idea Fang and I were here, obviously. And Angel was nowhere in sight.

"Should we break it up?" Fang asked.

After a moment of deliberation, I nodded. It was my obligation, as an older sister, to look out for Ella. Especially if some guy who looked older than _me_ was making out with her. Especially in public. If nothing else, this was a lesson, from me to her, on why you didn't do PDA. Nobody likes that stuff.

I cleared my throat loudly, then again when they didn't respond. Finally, I coughed several times, coughs that were obviously meant to draw attention rather than actually clear the throat. Ella and the boy pulled apart to glance our way. Ella froze when she saw Fang and I. I gave her a little wave.

"Hey sis. How's it going? Any luck with school shopping?"

She gaped at me like a fish for a moment, then turned to the boy and said something low, under her breath. He nodded and walked the other way after giving her another peck on the cheek, which made Ella blush profusely.

"You know, for a girl in a secret relationship, you sure were pretty open with that kiss," I said.

"It's not secret from you guys. Just from mom," she said, crossing her arms protectively in front of herself.

"She could have been out here too," Fang pointed out.

Ella shrugged. "Whatever. I'll be more careful," she said.

"Did you guys plan this?" I asked. I realized too late that she might have mentioned that yesterday and I just didn't remember it. Luckily, she didn't seem confused about my question, and just shrugged.

"Kind of. I said I was going to be here, and he said he would try and stop by," she said.

"Was that a nose ring?" Fang had apparently been more observant than me.

She shrugged. "Yeah. Why does it matter?"

"It never said it did." Fang shrugged.

"Ella, don't get me wrong, I'm happy for you, but be careful. If he's the kind of guy you're ashamed to bring home to your mother-"

"Whoa, who said I was ashamed?" Ella said, getting defensive.

"I didn't mean…"

"I know exactly what you meant. You're just being a protective big sister, I get it. But I'm not a little kid anymore. Didn't we just have this conversation yesterday? I could have sworn you were on my side then," she said.

I swallowed. Crap, had I been? After looking at Fang, I reached the conclusion that yes, I definitely was. So in her eyes, this was a complete 360.

"I'm just saying you should think carefully about this. Don't rush into it, okay? There's plenty of time, and it's better to be cautious than rush into something you'll regret later."

I could tell by the look on her face that I'd said something wrong again. She rolled her eyes and gritted her teeth.

"Jesus Max, just because you're content to watch your boyfriend without ever touching him doesn't mean the rest of us are. I, for one, intend to actually live my life, enjoy my teenage years, not spend them at home worrying and moping and pretending like I don't love the guy I can't keep my eyes off of," she said, storming away.

I was speechless. I couldn't bring myself to look at Fang, not after what she'd just said. He'd have to be blind to not know he was the guy she was referring to. I could feel how red my face was. I just stared after her as she went back inside the mall.

"Uuh… maybe we should go back inside and see if we can find some of the others," Fang said.

I nodded, standing up and walking away as quickly as I could. I heard him hurry to catch up with me, then sink into step beside me.

"She'll forget about this in a couple of days, don't worry about it," Fang said.

I nodded, then looked at him for the first time. "Do you think she's right?"

He raised an eyebrow, and I quickly added, before he could draw the wrong conclusions, "About us wasting our time here. We're not accomplishing anything. We're growing up, but it's not like when we were out, defeating erasers and helping people. I never thought I'd miss that, but maybe I do," I said.

Fang nodded. "Same here. It was dangerous and terrifying, but we had a purpose, at least. We knew what the end goal was."

I stared at the sky as we walked. "Maybe that's why I agreed to let us go back to school. To give us a sense of purpose," I said, shrugging.

"Maybe," he said.

Neither of us mentioned the rest of what Ella had said, and we walked in companionable silence back to the food court, where we found Iggy sitting with Nudge. As we approached, they jumped apart, like they had been conspiring on something. I narrowed my eyes at her.

"You knew Ella was meeting up with her boyfriend?" I asked

She nodded slowly. "Sorry I didn't mention it. Your mom would have heard," she said.

"Speaking of her, where is she? And the kids?" Fang asked.

"They went to get backpacks," Iggy volunteered.

Nudge nodded. "Yeah, they're over there, if you want to join them. You guys didn't get backpacks, I take it," she said, looking at our little plastic bags of supplies.

I shrugged and looked at Fang. "I guess we might as well."

As we walked away, I noted that maybe Nudge and Iggy were a bit too relieved to have us out of their way. Nudge's reason was all too clear, but Iggy's was less so. I decided to ask them about it later.

It didn't take long to find my mom, since Angel and Gazzy were arguing loudly about which backpacks were better- Angel was advocating a pink one, and Gazzy just wanted one with lots of pockets to fit explosives in.

My mom sighed when she saw us. "Can you take over here? I just got a call, and I need some quiet," she said. I nodded, and she hurried off. Fang and I picked out backpacks without any of the drama that seemed to follow the blonde siblings in front of us, and then we managed to quiet the two of them long enough to haul them to the front of the store and check out.

My mom was nowhere to be seen, but we decided to wait for her where we had said we were going to be. Gazzy and Angel ran on ahead when they spotted Iggy and Nudge sitting nearby.

"Ella's still MIA," I mumbled under my breath. Fang had stopped walking, and was looking around with a mix of confusion and worry on his face. I waved a hand. "I was joking. She'll be fine. Probably off with her boyfriend. I think that still counts as the buddy system," I said.

Fang shook his head. "Max. Look around us," he said, his voice low and worried. I noticed how his hands had clenched, his muscles tense. Something was wrong. I immediately went on alert, my senses coming to life.

I looked at the crowd, trying to see what Fang was seeing. And then I realized that a lost of the people here today were large, muscled men. The sort of men that looked like they could sprout fur and muzzles any minute now.

"Shit."

We were surrounded by erasers.

"Grab the others. Get out. Quickly." I spoke quietly under my breath so that only he could hear me.

Fang raised an eyebrow.

"I've got to find Ella and my mom," I said, turning on my heel to head the other way.

Now that I was looking for them, I saw the potential erasers everywhere. A couple of them might have just been a coincidence, but unless there was a bodybuilding contest going on in the mall, we were being surrounded, and were seconds away from an ambush.

I couldn't find my mom or Ella. I looked frantically through the crowd for what seemed like several minutes, but couldn't have been. After all, the Erasers had to have noticed that we were panicking, getting ready to flee the scene. They had to have known they were losing the upper hand by letting us escape. But why were none of them moving? I looked right at several of them, but only saw them walk on by, as if I didn't matter to them. They were ignoring me.

"Max!" I turned to see Fang coming towards me with the others.

"Why are you guys still here? I told you to get out," I said, getting worried.

"It's okay. We don't need to run," Fang said.

I raised an eyebrow. What, had he befriended them or something?

"They're not here to capture us," Angel said. She looked calm, which reassured me a little.

"Then why are there dozens of erasers at the mall? Are they shopping?" I asked.

"No, they're here because we're here," Angel said.

"To hang out with us? Wait, don't tell me; they're going school shopping too. It all makes so much sense now." Except it didn't. Ever.

"They're under strict orders to observe. Nothing else. I can see it in their mind. They're watching us, but they're not going to do anything," Angel said.

"Not yet at least," Fang added under his breath.

"That doesn't mean we're just going to accept their presence here. They're a threat. The moment their orders change, they could be all over us," I said.

"But that won't happen. Not until we all have our new powers," Angel said, far too cheery for the words that had just come out of her mouth.

"Jeb sent them?" I asked.

Angel shrugged. "Don't know."

I was about to probe her for more information, when my mom and Ella came up with big smiles and armfuls of clothes.

"Did you guys get new outfits for school?" Ella asked, carefully avoiding my eyes.

"Not yet! Let's go," Angel said, darting off before any of us could stop her.

I spent the rest of our day in a strange state of paranoia. The erasers were just watching us. Most of them were subtle about it, but one or two of them just openly stared, not bothering to disguise the distaste on their faces.

"Are you going to buy clothes, or check out that guy over there all day?"

I turned to narrow my eyes at Fang. "That guy's an eraser."

He grinned. "I know."

I sighed and stepped closer to him. "Are we really just going to let this happen?"

He shrugged. "What else can we do? Fight them? Because I hate to break it to you, we're a little bit outnumbered. And I think the mall staff might get a little freaked out."

"This stinks of Jeb," I said.

He shrugged. "Unless you know a way to get ahold of him, we're just going to have to wait for him to make a move, I guess," Fang said, then paused. "Your Voice hasn't said anything?"

I shook my head. In the past year, my Voice had been blissfully silent in my head. I hadn't heard a single piece of the not-so-helpful bits of help it usually gave me, the cryptic messages like, _You've got to go to the river of life if you want to swim during the moonlight_, or maybe the slightly more practical_, Don't eat the Peking duck; it'll give you gas_. Not that I was complaining; to some extent, I'd been blocking it, just like I blocked Angel's influence in my head. But now, when we actually had a use for it, I decided to suck it up and ask for help.

_Voice? You there?_

Nothing.

Crickets.

"We'll wait and see what happens," Fang said, looking at my face with amusement. I imagine I looked slightly constipated, which is a look I wear very well, thank you very much.

We finished up at the mall and headed back home not long after that. I almost expected to see the erasers following us out of the mall single file, packing themselves neatly into a school bus and tailing us back home. But they didn't. They barely reacted at all to our exit.

And so we made it back home after our long day of shopping, slightly exhausted, maybe a bit scared, more than a bit confused. Iggy was distracted with his gambling addict of a girlfriend, and Ella with her secret boyfriend, and Nudge with Iggy. Gazzy and Angel were both blissfully fighting with each other. And then there was me and Fang. I fell asleep on his shoulder on the way home, which would have been pretty embarrassing if it hadn't also been wonderful. When I woke up, I kept my head right where it was, enjoying his warmth, the knowledge that even if the whole world went to shit around us, I still had him.

My memory, on the other hand, was still iffy.

This was going to be a great school year.

**Rate for the Fax to really kick in next chapter...**


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